Other returning volunteers will soon have the opportunity to
duplicate Schirber's success. The Peace Corps, which helped start the
Teachers College program six years ago, has decided to expand the
project to include a wide range of colleges, universities, and school
districts across the country. The expanded program, now called Peace
Corps Fellows/USA, is a milestone for the agency. It marks the first
time in its 29-year history that the Peace Corps has developed a
specific program to fulfill one of its congressional mandates: to have
volunteers bring home their experiences from abroad and share them with
their fellow citizens.

"This program is an opportunity to share their international
perspective in the classroom,'' says Barbara Zartman, deputy director
of the Peace Corps, "and a way of harvesting the investment that
taxpayers have made in the volunteers. It's too good an experience to
leave at the end of two years.''

Since last summer, 12 additional colleges and universities have
signed agreements to offer master's degree programs for returning
volunteers. The 12 are Tulane University, the University of Southern
California, Florida International University, Georgia College, George
Washington University, Ohio University, Texas A&M, the University
of Southern Mississippi, Georgia State University, Auburn University,
the University of Michigan, and the University of Maryland at Towson.
By the end of May, the agency expects to have agreements signed with
the University of Hawaii, San Diego State University, San Francisco
State University, Northern Arizona University, and the University of
New Mexico.

Each university will arrange to have nearby school districts hire
the returned volunteers to teach subjects in which there is a shortage
of qualified teachers. The Peace Corps teachers begin working in the
local schools immediately, completing their own studies at night and
during the summer. All former Corps volunteers are eligible to apply
for the program. Formal teaching experience abroad is not required by
the Peace Corps, although some universities may decide to make teaching
experience a prerequisite. Dale Gilles, who is coordinating the
university program for the Peace Corps, estimates that between 900 and
1,200 of the 3,000 volunteers who return to this country every year
have formal teaching experience. The total number of returned
volunteers is now about 120,000. "Basically, every Peace Corps
volunteer is in some way a teacher,'' Gilles says.

The participating universities also are trying to raise money to
provide tuition stipends or scholarships for the returning volunteers.
At Tulane, which began its program in January, the Coca-Cola Foundation
will pay half the cost of the master's program--or about $20,000--for
the first six students admitted to the program. For the Peace Corps,
the only cost of the new program is the salaries of Gilles and his
assistant.

P. Michael Timpane, president of Teachers College, says he believes
the agency was wise to give the program time to develop before
expanding it. In its six years, Timpane notes, the program has proved
to be "a terrific benefit for everybody concerned.''

"In some very difficult schools, [the returned volunteers] have
performed very ably,'' the Teachers College president says. "They are
not easily dismayed.''

University officials who have begun to screen applications for the
programs--most of which will begin in the fall--say they prize the
returned volunteers for their varied experiences, knowledge of foreign
languages, multicultural perspectives, and ability to work under
difficult conditions with few resources.

At each participating university, officials are working to construct
the programs according to local needs. For example, Zartman notes that
San Francisco schools are very short of bilingual teachers fluent in
Tagalog, the language of the Philippines. San Francisco State
University, therefore, is "moving with incredible speed,'' she says, to
put together a program for some of the Peace Corps volunteers who were
pulled out of the Philippines last year for safety reasons.

George Washington University in Washington, D.C., plans to admit 30
returning volunteers for a program of study that emphasizes working
with at-risk students in both regular and special education, according
to Juliana Taymans, an associate professor of special education. The
District of Columbia schools, as well as the suburban Montgomery County
and Prince George's County systems in Maryland, have agreed to hire
returning volunteers who are admitted to the program.

Georgia College has found that many returned volunteers are eager to
teach at rural schools, to the amazement of some local administrators,
according to Edward Wolpert, dean of the college's school of education.
Some of the rural Georgia superintendents who have been approached by
the college about hiring Peace Corps veterans, he says, have been
"somewhat surprised that there are people who would like to come out
and teach in the 'boonies.'

''

"One of the things the superintendents will find nice about
these people is that they are used to working under very
primitive conditions, with limited books and supplies,'' Wolpert
says. "Things aren't quite that bad here, but at least they will
not have people demanding things they can't get.''

The dean adds that he hopes another, more subtle, benefit of
the program will be the effect the returned volunteers will have
on their college classmates, the majority of whom are from the
surrounding area.

Says Wolpert: "We're hoping there will be a really good effect
on our indigenous students by having [the returned Peace Corps
volunteers] share their experiences.''

Ann Bradley, Education Week

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